


Angels in the Snow

by animeangelriku



Series: Puzzleshipping Advent [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Snow, Snow Angels, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 22:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeangelriku/pseuds/animeangelriku
Summary: Yugi teaches Atem how to make a snow angel.





	Angels in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> It never snows where I live, and so I have to live all of my snow dreams vicariously through the puzzle nerds. I'm completely fine with this. Also, I know I'm kind of behind, but I promise I'll do my best to catch up!
> 
> You can also read this on my [Tumblr!](http://animeangelriku.tumblr.com/post/168214375992/puzzleshipping-angels-in-the-snow)

Atem… doesn’t really understand what’s unfolding in front of him. Then again, there are a _lot_ of things that Atem has yet to understand, so that’s not entirely surprising.

Across the street from the game shop, there are several children simply… falling down on the snow and then moving their arms and legs around in some strange and seemingly coordinated fashion. Atem watches as the children stand up and look down at the snow before giggling or clapping their hands together or patting each other’s backs, and he wonders what they did to merit such celebration.

Not that one shouldn’t celebrate the small things, of course—he just wants to know _what_ it is they apparently celebrate.

“Atem!”

Atem looks up at the ladder next to him. Yugi’s currently standing on it, hanging some Christmas lights outside of the game shop. Atem’s supposed to be helping him, holding the string of lights so that they won’t smash against the ladder or the ground and break, but he must’ve gotten distracted. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes, lifting his string of lights so that Yugi can grab them.

“That’s okay,” Yugi says, smiling, and Atem can’t help but smile back. “What were you thinking so hard about?”

Atem points to the children across the street. “What are they doing?”

Yugi glances in the direction he’s pointing, and a grin spreads across his face. The ladder must give him some advantage, because he’s clearly seeing something Atem cannot. 

“Snow angels!” he cries. 

Atem blinks. “Snow… angels?” 

He’s heard about snowball fights and snowmen and an _abominable_ snowman, and he knows what angels are, but so far, he hasn’t heard anyone say anything about these so-called ‘snow angels.’ Are they angels made of snow? But he didn’t see the children _building_ anything, not in the way Yugi has told him snowmen are built. 

“Yes!” Yugi says. “You lie down in the snow and move your arms and legs up and down, and when you get up, it’s like you’ve made an angel in the snow!”

Atem lets out a pensive hum, even though he doesn’t know how moving your arms and legs up and down would make an angel in the snow. He just… can’t see it. 

He and Yugi hear Mrs. Mutou—she had told him several times before, “Atem, listen, if you’re going to stay here, you might as well call me Mom, too,” but Atem is still trying to get used to it—through the window, calling them back inside for dinner. Then they spend the rest of the evening helping her and Grandpa decorate the inside of the game shop, and Atem forgets about snow angels entirely.

*

The next morning, he’s woken up by Yugi gently shaking his shoulder.

“Atem,” he calls, his voice barely above a whisper. “Atem, wake up.” 

Atem blinks tiredly, rubbing the sleep off his eyes, and when his vision clears, he sees that not only is Yugi already dressed for the day, but he’s dressed like he’s going to spend the entire day outside in the snow: he’s wearing mittens and earmuffs and a scarf and Atem knows that he hates wearing all that when he’s inside because then it gets too hot for comfort. 

“Hey,” Atem says drowsily, yawning. “Going somewhere?”

At his question, the smile on Yugi’s face widens into a grin. “Want to make snow angels with me?”

Atem is awake immediately. 

After he’s gotten dressed in enough warm clothes to face the cold, he and Yugi head out of the game shop and directly towards the snow banks across the street, which, according to Yugi, are perfect for making snow angels. Atem has no idea what makes a snow bank “perfect” for making snow angels, but he’s not going to question Yugi—he knows more about this than Atem does, after all.

Once they reach the snow banks, Yugi sits down and pats the snow beside him, and Atem follows behind him. 

“Now you lie down,” Yugi says, lying back on the snow, “and just start moving your arms and legs like this!”

Atem pays close attention to the way Yugi’s instructing him to move, though there doesn’t seem to be any secret behind it. Up and down, up and down, up and down. It… doesn’t look as complicated as Atem had thought just from what he saw the children do yesterday.

He lies down on the snow, and he involuntarily shivers a little. He’s never lied down on snow before, and the coldness of the contact makes him pause for a second. Then he starts copying Yugi’s movements, feeling how his arms and legs push the snow above and away from him, focusing on the burning sensation beneath him that’s starting to spread up his back. It doesn’t… it doesn’t _hurt_ him, not exactly—it’s like the snow is pushing back against him, so cold that it burns, and so Atem’s movements have to be quick, in sync, in the strange and coordinated fashion he saw yesterday.

At first, he struggles. It’s more difficult than he originally thought, but he still continues to push the snow away until he’s breathing heavily, until he feels Yugi’s hand on his arm and hears his also labored breathing, until Yugi’s laughing and standing above him, holding out his hand so that Atem can take it and let himself be pulled to his feet. 

He glances down at their creations in the snow.

And he grins.

And he laughs.

“They _do_ look like angels,” he says, staring in disbelief at the indentations they left behind. He turns his head to Yugi, and the equally ecstatic grin on his face makes Atem laugh again, their mitten-covered hands still grasping each other’s. When Yugi had first explained the process to him, he couldn’t see it, no matter how many different ways he tried to picture it. Now that the result is staring back at him, he can’t believe he didn’t see it before. 

Yugi chuckles then, and before Atem can ask what’s wrong, he says, “You have snow all over your back.” He starts to pat Atem’s back (and ruffle Atem’s hair, too) with his free hand, and that’s when Atem sees that Yugi is equally covered in snow.

“Here,” he says as he does the same to Yugi. After a moment, they’re both snow-free, and they smile at each other before glancing down at their creations again. 

Yesterday, Atem hadn’t even heard about snow angels. Today he _made_ one, and even though his arms and legs feel a little sore, he doesn’t care. 

He turns his head back to Yugi and tightens his grip around Yugi’s hand, as difficult as it might result with both of them wearing mittens rather than gloves. He doesn’t know how to thank him, how to explain just how grateful he is for everything Yugi does for him, for everything he’s done and for everything he keeps doing, he doesn’t think there are words that convey exactly what he wants to say, so he just… 

He just smiles, choking back the sudden knot in his throat.

Yugi narrows his eyes at him, just a little. “What?” he asks, a note of worry in his voice.

Atem shakes his head. He’s still surprised at how much he has yet to learn, at how much the world still has to offer someone like him.

“Nothing,” he says.

He’s just glad to have Yugi holding his hand through it all. 

And, really, that’s all he’ll ever need.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how it actually feels to make a snow angel, I just like going on rants about Atem seeing the world in a new light now that he can experience it with his own body.


End file.
